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September 2023

MY SAY: Comments turned off

MY SAY: THE GOP DEBATE

By on September 28th, 2023

I watched the messy and shrill GOP debate last night with the misgiving that none of it really mattered. Elections in America are the hallmark of democracy and equality. Every single citizen in America- rich, poor, black, white, radical, conservative, orthodox, secular, atheist, etc. has that day to express a national choice. But, and this is a huge but, that precious freedom to choose is endangered by the lack of real election integrity.

The media libels and disinforms with alacrity. Many pollsters routinely ask yes or no questions designed to elicit shaky results to favor chosen candidates, and shady revised election rules threaten the integrity of results in a preponderance of states and districts.

Not a single candidate last night even brought it up. rsk

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Heather Mac Donald But Johnny Can’t Spell G-A-Y With large majorities of their students incompetent in English and math, Los Angeles schools are ramping up efforts—for more gay pride and gender indoctrination.

By on September 28th, 2023

https://www.city-journal.org/article/but-johnny-cant-spell-g-a-y

It has been almost 90 days since Gay Pride month. According to the Los Angeles Unified School District, that is too long a hiatus from the imperative of immersing young children in the arcana of gay and trans identity. So throughout the week of October 9, many elementary school classrooms in Los Angeles will celebrate “National Coming Out Day,” which falls on October 11.  

October is itself LGBTQ+ History Month, the Los Angeles Unified School District bureaucracy has reminded what it calls the district’s “fabulous educators.” Other LGBTQ+ programming will take place throughout October, picking up where Gay Pride month left off.  The goals for the so-called Week of Action are ambitious: to turn six-year-olds into budding gender and critical race theorists.

An LAUSD teacher forwarded me the district’s “toolkit” for teachers laying out that agenda. Use of the toolkit, decorated with a Black Power Fist superimposed on neon rainbow stripes, is nominally optional, but elementary school teachers who forego LGBTQ programming during the Week of Action will surely risk stigmatization. (The district did not respond to queries regarding expected classroom participation rates.)

At the Week of Action’s start, teachers should engage kindergarten and first-grade students in discussions about identity, aided by an activity called an “Identity Map.” Pupils chart their experiences of discrimination or privilege along 12 axes, including race, gender identity, sexuality, mental health, and body size. This mapping allows seven-year-olds to see themselves through the “lens of intersectionality.” Teachers then post the identity maps on the wall for a class discussion about students’ multiple “identities.”

Each elementary school day during the Week of Action can be devoted to a different LGBTQ+ celebrity, whose identity will be announced in morning assemblies, suggests the toolkit.

Monday is Jazz Jennings Day. Jennings’s fame rests on being one of the youngest children to date to claim a trans identity. “Assigned male at birth,” as Jazz’s publicity materials inevitably put it, Jazz allegedly asserted female identity at age two, and was diagnosed with gender dysphoria at age four. Subsequent surgery tried to cut Jazz’s body into a simulacrum of a female one and resulted in undisclosed “complications.” On Jazz Jennings day, the LAUSD recommends that kindergartners engage in the fabulous activities of “Which Outfit” and “Which Hairdo.” (One day is not enough to acknowledge the fabulousness that is Jazz. January in the LAUSD is devoted to holding Jazz and Friends Reading Events, supplemented by reading inclusive books in every grade.)

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Senate Forces Fetterman to Wear Big Boy Pants, Passing a Formal Dress Code By Stephen Kruiser

By on September 28th, 2023

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stephen-kruiser/2023/09/27/senate-forces-fetterman-to-wear-big-boy-pants-passing-a-formal-dress-code-n1730465

Our seemingly long national nightmare is over: Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) will no longer be able to dress like a homeless crackhead at work.

After Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) made a unilateral decision to relax the unwritten dress code to accommodate Pennsylvania’s most notorious outpatient, his colleagues decided to get it in writing.

CBSNews.com:

The U.S. Senate has passed a resolution formalizing business attire as the proper dress code for the floor of the chamber by unanimous consent.

This comes after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer chose to stop enforcing the unwritten requirement, and Democratic Sen. John Fetterman’s casual dress became a flashpoint in the Capitol.

The bipartisan bill from Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney requires that members abide by a real dress code – rather than an unwritten custom – when on the Senate floor, that includes a coat, tie, and slacks for men.

“Though we’ve never had an official dress code, the events over the past week have made us all feel as though formalizing one is the right path forward,” Schumer said. “I deeply appreciate Senator Fetterman working with me to come to an agreement that we all find acceptable, and of course I appreciate Sen. Manchin and Sen. Romney’s leadership on this issue.”

Savor the moment, my fellow Americans, this may be the last reach-across-the-aisle, Kumbaya vote we see on either side of Capitol Hill for a while.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden’s Booby Trap For a Republican President Protecting bureaucracy instead of democracy. by Betsy McCaughey

By on September 28th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/bidens-booby-trap-for-a-republican-president/

The Biden administration is setting a booby trap in case a Republican wins the presidency in 2024.

Last Friday, the White House unveiled a proposed rule that would make it even harder than in the past for an incoming Republican president to wrestle control of the left-leaning federal bureaucracy and actually implement the conservative policies promised to voters.

Of the 2.2 million federal civil workers, only 4,000 are presidential appointees. The rest stay in their jobs, from one administration to the next, protected by rules that make it nearly impossible to discipline or replace them.

They overwhelmingly favor the Left. A staggering 95% of unionized federal employees who donate to political candidates give to Democrats, according to Open Secrets. Only a tiny 5% support Republicans.

Some federal workers in high positions slow-walk or even derail a Republican president’s agenda — and get away with it.

Why bother to vote if the left-leaning deep state stays in charge no matter who wins the presidency?

GOP candidates Donald Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis are vowing to conquer this obstructionism.

Everett Kelley, union president of the American Federation of Government Employees, claims GOP contenders want to “politicize routine government work.” Nonsense. We’re not talking about mail carriers. It’s time to make lawyers, PhDs and other top-level career bureaucrats implement the president’s agenda, not their own.

After Trump won in 2016, they went to town neutralizing him on almost every policy front, explains James Sherk, special assistant to the White House Domestic Policy Council under Trump.

Career lawyers in the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division flat out refused to challenge Yale University’s discrimination against Asian American applicants. Trump had to recruit lawyers from other divisions. After Joe Biden became president, the DOJ dropped the case. But the same career lawyers who refused to sue Yale made the losing argument in support of affirmative action before the U.S. Supreme Court.

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HISTORY Comments turned off

The Roman Empire Through Virgil’s Eyes What makes Rome and its fate so significant for Americans today. by Bruce Thornton

By on September 28th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-roman-empire-through-virgils-eyes/

Recently a trend on Tik-Tok had its fifteen minutes of click-fame.  It seems that some women are asking their men how often they think about the Roman Empire. The usual suspect experts were consulted, and of course they conclude that this interest in Rome reflects modern males’ angst over, or nostalgia for a time when patriarchy dominated, and manly deeds defined the male sex––the original “toxic masculinity.”

There’s nothing wrong per se with thinking about ancient Rome. Since Edward Gibbon’s magisterial Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the history of Rome has been a cautionary tale of how great empires collapse. Given the abundance of empirical evidence––invasions of unvetted migrants, our geopolitical enemies’ increasing challenges, a looming fiscal apocalypse, and suicidal social and cultural corruption––our country may be experiencing Rome’s fate, making its history deserving of our attention. And one place to start is reading what one brilliant Roman thought about the then new empire.

There’s no greater witness than the poet Virgil, who came of age during the last years of the Roman Republic, a century when social disorder, civic violence, and civil wars between Roman generals and their legions were chronic. Virgil’s Aeneid (19 B.C.) tells the story of Rome’s beginnings in the invasion of Italy by Trojan refugees, and also explores the tragic costs of civilization, and the lofty idealism that some great empires have claimed to represent.

That theme is what makes Rome and its fate so significant for us Americans, who are watching a floundering foreign policy lurching between appeasement and half-hearted interventions abroad.

Virgil has several scenes that make Rome’s imperial idealism explicit. One dimension of Rome’s greatness was its virtue: not just courage, the most important virtue for every civilization, but also pietas, the duty and responsibility one owes to family, the dead, the gods, and Rome itself. Virgil’s hero Aeneas is known for this virtue, hence the honorific pius attached to his name.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Where Are The Palestinian Concessions For Peace? by Bassam Tawil

By on September 28th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20001/palestinian-concessions-peace

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was quoted on September 15 as saying that “normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel….needs to involve a two-state solution.” Most Palestinians, however, take quite a different view of the matter.

[A] public opinion poll revealed that a majority of the Palestinians are opposed to a normalization agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel and the so-called two-state solution. The two-state Saudi solution envisages the establishment of an Iran-backed Arab terror state next to Israel. Israel already has such a terror state next to its border: the Gaza Strip, ruled since 2007 by Iran’s proxies, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

On August 25, the American media outlet Axios reported that Blinken told Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer that the Israeli government is “misreading the situation” if it thinks it will not have to make any concessions to the Palestinians as part of any Saudi deal.

If anyone is misreading the situation, however, it is Blinken, who thinks that Israeli concessions would convince the Palestinians to accept a normalization agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel. As the results of the PCPSR poll showed, the Palestinian public is not impressed with the proposed concessions.

If the Palestinian Authority is currently unable to prevent terror groups from attacking Israelis, it is truly delusional to think that it would be more diligent in protecting any new areas it received from Israel. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is hardly likely to send his security officers to arrest or kill the terrorists in the cities of Jenin and Nablus. He knows that if he does, his people will condemn him as a “traitor” and “collaborator” with Israel, and quickly dispatch him to “drink tea up there” with the assassinated former President of Egypt, Anwar Sadat who was murdered for brokering Israel’s 1979 peace deal with Egypt. Moreover, Abbas will not go against the terrorists as long as they do not physically go against him.

Most of all, the idea of transferring more land to the Palestinians is terrible because sends a message to the Palestinian Authority that, after it failed to combat terrorism in land under its control, it will be rewarded with even more land.

As the poll illustrates, support for anti-Israel terrorism among the Palestinians has risen from 53% (three months ago) to 58% today. That is why it is unrealistic to expect the Palestinian Authority to take any measures to disarm the terror groups in the West Bank. Unlike Blinken, Palestinian leaders are aware of the massive support for terrorism among their people. Unlike Blinken, Palestinian leaders also know that without Israel’s presence in the West Bank, Iran and its terror proxies would have taken complete control of the area a long time ago and ousted Abbas just as they did from the Gaza Strip in 2007

The Palestinian Authority, through its “Pay-for-Slay” policy, does indeed proudly reward terrorists who murder or injure Jews. In just one year, “Ramallah paid out around NIS 600 million ($187 million) in salaries for Palestinians imprisoned, jailed, or killed by Israel in 2020, according to a senior Palestine Liberation Organization official.”

So, while Blinken is talking about the need to involve the “two-state solution” in a Saudi-Israeli deal, 67% of the Palestinians oppose it.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden, Menendez, And Michelle: Birds Of A Bribery Feather

By on September 28th, 2023

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/09/28/biden-menendez-and-michelle-birds-of-a-bribery-feather/

Q: What is the difference between what Sen. Bob Menendez is charged with, what President Joe Biden is being investigated for, and the speech Michelle Obama gave in Germany on Monday?

A: Only the dollar amounts.

Just as Democrats were ramping up calls for Menendez to step down over bribery charges filed against him, and as House Republicans started their impeachment inquiry into whether Joe Biden used son Hunter to bribe foreign officials, Obama was reportedly getting paid an obscenely large amount of money for a one-hour talk on “diversity.”

These are all variations on a theme. Call it bribery, or extortion, or abuse of power, or whatever you want. This is how Democrats get rich these days. They expand the size and power of the federal government, then sell access and favors to the highest bidders.

Think about Michelle’s speech for a minute. According to the Daily Mail, she was paid $741,000, which means that by the time she was six minutes into her speech, she’d made more money than 50% of households in the United States make in a year.

This reported fee is also more than three times the already criminally large amount she normally gets paid to read words someone else wrote for her.

So, what makes Michelle suddenly three times more valuable? Did she discover a cure for cancer? A limitless, free, source of clean energy? An end to world hunger? Did she unlock the secrets of faster-than-light space travel? Or announce a plan to bring world peace?

Hardly. She is a talentless woman who happens to be married to a former president. The organizers of the event and 5,000 people in attendance most likely have already forgotten whatever it was she said.

The one and only reason she commanded that price is because of the current buzz that she might run for president next year, given that Biden seems unlikely to last until November 2024, let alone January 2029. The organizers of the event were buying political influence, not insights.

How is this different from what Biden was doing when he was selling access through his drug-addled son?

How is it any different from what the money-grubbing Clintons were doing with their bogus “Clinton Foundation,” which saw donations skyrocket when people thought she might be the next president. As we reported when we were with Investor’s Business Daily, donations to the Clinton Foundation cratered as soon as Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump in 2016.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

The second GOP debate was furious and messy — with no clear winner The real victor was the candidate with a commanding lead who wasn’t on stage” Charles Lipson

By on September 28th, 2023

The worst job in America on Wednesday was trying to moderate the second Republican debate. With seven candidates on stage struggling for airtime, moderators Dana Perino, Stuart Varney and Ilia Calderón did a creditable job under impossible conditions. They asked the right questions, but couldn’t stop the candidates from talking over each other, or returning to previous questions which they wanted to answer but hadn’t been asked. The moderators’ job was like being the referee with seven boxers in the ring. 

None of the fighters won, and none failed. They all put forward their best arguments in the sliver of time they had for each question. Unfortunately for voters trying to decide among them, that sliver wasn’t enough to say more than canned slogans. There were simply too many voices on stage to give each of them more time. With most polling in single digits, they knew this might be their last chance to make their case before being tossed out of the ring.  

Even the strongest candidates didn’t have time to flesh out important positions on major policy questions, to say much more than “I did it right in my home state” and “Joe Biden, bad.” 

The stringent time limits helped the most vapid among them, Vivek Ramaswamy, who could toss out unworkable ideas like confetti, knowing other candidates wouldn’t have time to expose their emptiness and the moderators wouldn’t have time to press for details. He’s slick enough to convince some voters and outrageous enough to convince others. But he shouldn’t be on the same stage as serious candidates with a genuine understanding of difficult policy issues and the background to actually implement solutions. 

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Retail Theft Rampage Gets Worse Target closes nine stores in four states because of crime, as looters run riot in Philadelphia.

By on September 28th, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/philadelphia-looting-target-store-closing-retail-theft-crime-1ee6de3c?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

You may have heard that a mob of teenagers looted stores in downtown Philadelphia on Tuesday night, and Target said the same day it is closing nine stores in four states because of rampant crime. Rack up more victories for progressive prosecutors.

The mobs in Philly hit Apple,Lululemon and Foot Locker stores in Center City, which ought to be a safe space for civilized commerce. The Foot Locker store was “ransacked in a coordinated attack,” said police. Police have made more than 50 arrests and are investigating property damage and theft elsewhere in the city. Some 76 incidents have been reported.

and Foot Locker stores in Center City, which ought to be a safe space for civilized commerce. The Foot Locker store was “ransacked in a coordinated attack,” said police. Police have made more than 50 arrests and are investigating property damage and theft elsewhere in the city. Some 76 incidents have been reported.

Interim Police Commissioner John Stanford said police are looking into whether “there was possibly a caravan of a number of different vehicles that were going from location to location.” He added, “Everyone in the city should be angry.”

Anger is justified in particular toward District Attorney Larry Krasner, who waves away property crime. His office reports 424 retail theft charges so far in 2023—compared to more than 1,500 by the same date in 2017, the year before he took office. Reports of retail theft in Philly have increased by more than 30%—to 13,330—compared to a year ago, according to the city’s latest weekly crime report.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Giving Donald Trump a Pass at the GOP Debate The other Republican presidential candidates largely left the front-runner off the hook.

By on September 28th, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/gop-presidential-debate-reagan-library-donald-trump-ac835016?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

The Republican Presidential candidates not named Donald Trump squared off for the second time on Wednesday, and they put on a good show that gave voters an insight into how they think and what they believe. But their main oversight continues to be that with rare exceptions they are giving Mr. Trump a pass.

The candidates are all fighting to become the alternative to Mr. Trump, who is leading in the polls by 30 or more points over his nearest challenger. They are looking to stand out from the pack, and that means promoting their records and making a contrast with the others on the stage. The debate over Ukraine was especially sharp and revealing, and we’ll have more to say about that in coming days.

But all of them also court irrelevance if they can’t cut into Mr. Trump’s commanding lead. And no one is going to become a credible alternative fighting about curtains at the United Nations. Sooner or later the candidates have to persuade voters that they would be better as the Republican nominee than Mr. Trump, with a better chance of winning and then governing for four years more effectively than the chaotic former President.

Yet there was precious little contrast with Mr. Trump on stage Wednesday night at the Reagan presidential library. The main exceptions were Chris Christie and Ron DeSantis, who hit Mr. Trump for not showing up to debate. Mr. Christie was effective on the point that Mr. Trump’s absence shows disrespect for voters, while Mr. DeSantis scored by noting that the former President doesn’t want to appear and have to defend his recent comments criticizing the Florida Governor for signing the state’s ban on abortion after six weeks.

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